Eye of the Storm
by tigersmeleth
Summary: During a frightening thunderstorm on Kessik IV, little B’lanna Torres is frightened, and turns to her father. A short vignette.


SUMMARY: During a frightening thunderstorm on Kessik IV, little B'lanna Torres is frightened, and turns to her father. A short vignette.

DISCLAIMER: Star Trek does not belong to me, it belongs to Paramount and the Roddenberrys and whoever else deserves the credit. I also have no idea who wrote the song "You Are My Sunshine," but I don't own that either.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: In this short fiction, B'lanna is about four or five years old. Also, her father's name is never really mentioned throughout Voyager's seven year run (or if it did, I missed it), so he's nameless.

Star Trek: Voyager 

**Eye of the Storm**

By Sonia Wong

There was a loud clap of thunder, so loud, so close that the sound of it shook the small, modest home of the Torres family on Kessik IV. Inside, in the bedroom on the second floor of the house, the little girl was startled awake by the thunder. She jumped up from her bed and looked out the window. Moonlight came through the stormy clouds in eerie streaks, like a strobe light as the clouds moved. The howl of the wind echoed inside the room. The girl lay on her bed, curled up in a fetal position under her warm blankets, tightly hugging her teddy bear.

"Oh, why does my Klingon side have to work now?" B'lanna thought, covering her ears with her hands. "The wind is very loud!" She curled herself tighter and pressed her cheek to her teddy bear. "You're not scared are you, Scotty?" she asked the bear. "Cause I'm not scared—I think," her voice shook a little bit. There was another roll of thunder. This one seemed to be right outside her room. She gave a small shriek and jumped out of her bed, all the while screaming "Daddy!" as she ran into her father's room and jumped into his bed.

He opened his eyes and sat up, groggily rubbing his eyes. He felt his daughter's little form curl in the space beside him. "Hello, Bee," he sleepily said. "What are you doing here?" He lifted up the covers to reveal B'lanna, who was looking up at him with large, frightened brown eyes. She shivered from the draft. He pulled her close to him, tenderly holding her.

"I'm scared!" she said, wrapping her arms around him and buried her face in his neck. He kissed the mass of brown hair that bobbed below his chin.

"Scared of what, Little Bee?" he gently asked her. She was still shivering, but this time from fear. He gently rubbed her back, feeling the tense muscles there.

"The thunder, it's very loud," was the muffled reply. He could feel her tears starting to come from her eyes.

"Hey, it's okay to be scared of the thunder," he said, rocking her back and forth. B'lanna sniffed a little. He could tell that she still didn't quite trust what he was saying. She pulled her face from his neck, tears still running down her frightened little face.

"Really, Daddy?" she asked skeptically. _Easy for him to say,_ she thought. _He's big and strong. I'm not._

"Sure it is," he was saying. She looked up at him, her eyes begging him to continue. "I was scared of the thunder when I was your age." He laughed at her frown and narrowed eyes. "Really, I was! Every time a storm hit our home in Mexico (remember, the country on Earth?), I would run screaming into your poor grandfather's room."

B'lanna giggled at the image of her father as a child running into her grandfather's room just as she did tonight. "See? Fathers are a wonderful thing aren't they? They're the eye of the storm to their children."

"Eye of the storm?" she asked, a puzzled look coming over her face. "What's that?"

"It the one place in the middle of a storm where there's no wind, rain, thunder, no nothing," he explained, lying down with her in his arms. "You're safe there."

"Like you, Daddy?" B'lanna asked with a smile in her voice.

"Yes, Little Bee, like me," he said. She sighed with contentment as she pulled herself further into his strong arms. Yes, she felt very safe. She let out a yawn. He tucked the blankets around them. "How about a song before you sleep?"

"Okay, Daddy," she said.

"What song would you like me to sing?" he asked.

"Don't know. You pick!" she suggested.

"All right." He thought for a moment, then his face lit up with a smile as he began to sing.

"_You are my sunshine,_

_ My only sunshine._

_ You make me happy,_

_ When skies are grey._

_ You never know dear,_

_ How much I love you._

_ Please don't take,_

_ My sunshine away._"

B'lanna yawned and closed her eyes. "Am I your sunshine, Daddy?"

He kissed his daughter's delicately ridged forehead. "Yes, sweetie, you are."

"Love you, Daddy," B'lanna sleepily mumbled.

"Love you too, Bee. Now get some sleep, I'll take you to the shuttle with me, how does that sound?" he asked, making a spur of the moment decision.

"I like it, Daddy. I'll be a good girl," B'lanna said before falling asleep.

"That's my good Little Bee," he softly said before he too drifted off to sleep.

Finis


End file.
